1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to wagering game monitoring and in particular to a method and apparatus for monitoring a table and game play at table to track game play.
2. Related Art
Gambling has become a popular form of entertainment in the United States and in numerous foreign countries. Although numerous wagering events are offered within the casino or other gaming environment, one of the most traditional and popular forms of wagering occurs at table games. As is widely understood, traditional table games utilize a playing surface, often called a felt, upon which a dealer or other game operator offers a wagering event to one or more players or upon which a player may make a bet or wager.
As compared to slot or video type games, traditional table games offer greater excitement for some players, group play, and often attract big money players, which can result in larger profit margins for the casino. Slots or video type games, however, often integrate a player tracking system that allows a computerized system to monitor a player's participation, such as how often a player plays and how much a particular player wagers. Furthermore, electronic gaming machines, such as slot or video type machines accurately detect wagers and payouts and thus are very efficient at preventing cheating. In a table game environment however, it is often difficult to track how much money a player wagers and thus it is likewise difficult to accurately provide complimentary gifts or reward good customers to encourage a return to a particular property. Prior art systems use gaming tokens embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) to track a player's betting for this purpose. An example of such a system is the Mikohn® Gaming Corporation's d/b/a Progressive Gaming International Corporation's Tablelink® product.
However, even with prior art bet tracking techniques, numerous wagering aspects may be missed or unmonitored. One drawback to prior art systems is that existing RFID type systems may not be able to accurately track every token, particularly when numerous tokens are stacked. In addition, prior art systems may suffer from inter-antenna interference if RFID antennas are spaced too closely together as such for games that have multiple and independent betting options per player seat, such as for example, the game of baccarat. As a result, table layouts require sufficient spacing between antenna, which in turn may prevent desired felt layout or prevent presentation of the desired game.
Another drawback of prior art table monitoring systems resulted when attempting to interface monitoring systems with a particular game. In prior art systems, the dealer or pit boss was forced to synchronize the monitoring system software with the particular game in play, and the particular version of the game in play. This step required additional training and time from busy casino personnel and failure to perform this step correctly will result in the tracking system providing faulty data that is not synchronized to game play.
Another drawback to the prior art is that while a RFID equipped token may be detected when placed on the table, once removed from the table, its status as a previous bet may be lost. In addition, payouts to a particular winning wager may not be associated with a winning wager, but simply detected as additional tokens being placed on the table. To adequately monitor game play, aspects of table monitoring beyond monitoring tokens placed on and removed from the table may be required.
The method and apparatus described below overcomes these drawbacks and provides additional benefits.